


Milanese Specialty

by gisho



Series: Background Characters [7]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Coffee, Meta, Mid-Canon, and would be very alarmed by it, epistolatory, publishing, schemes, vanamonde von mekkhan does not appear in this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 20:26:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16271729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gisho/pseuds/gisho
Summary: Wherin a book about coffee attracts attention and several people try to make a quick lira. (Written for GG Event Week 2018.)





	Milanese Specialty

\--

To Bugatti's Coffee Emporium:

Please deliver at your earliest convenience to #12 Via Pomodoro:

1 kg Medium Hazelnut   
2 1/2 kg Penumbra Roast  
1 Seasonal Sampler Assortment  
4 replacement Caffeclank blades  
1 Caffeclank Novo, size miniature, trim mahogany   
Copy of "Bean There, Done That"  
Copy of "Travels with Filterbag and Grinder"

Lady Mafalda de Verre will be delighted to arrange compensation on delivery.

Yours truly,  
G.L. Ricci

-

Spina, fill the rest but we're out of Bean There Done That, order another fifty, and twenty of anything else from them we're running low on. - Monaldo

-

Signor Monaldo, 

I regret to report we're permanently out of stock on 'Bean There, Done That'. The publisher was Helix Press, in Mechanicsburg. We'll also be out of 'Horrible Perversions Of Coffee Biology' in seven copies. I've written a note of apology with gratis chocobeans to Lady de Verre. Who should I inform to correct the catalog?

\- I. Spina

-

Go find some more copies then, we just got three orders, someone must be starting a book club. - Monaldo

\--

PROSPERO & CO., Books and Maps

Sig.ra Spina,

We regret to inform you that we have no copies available of 'Bean There Done That' and are unable to reorder, as the publishing house is located in Mechanicsburg and inaccessible. Normally in such circumstances we would refer you to a producer of facsimiles, but in light of what became of Doniescu's Scribal Offices and Minor Press after the reproduction of 'Swarf from the Court of Gears', I can't in good conscience recommend it.

\- Lucia Rossi

\--

Spina, sorry to say we're out of stock too on Bean There Done That. There's some sort of fad for Mechanicsburg stuff. I guess everyone thinks it's romantic. Why else would they be buying us out of a coffee book in Romanian when there are perfectly good books about the science of coffee in Lombard? I'm surprised Bugatti's isn't pushing the one Signor Bugatti wrote and trying to ignore all the rest. Or there are Florentine books if they're feeling all highfalutin and literary, Linda rather fancied 'The Cup Of Life And Death'. Nobody else does. I guess it's the skull on the cover, discourages browsers. Would your people be interested in a volume discount? I bet you could package it with samples of Moonless Roast and make a killing. You know. Metaphorically. Come by the bookshop sometime and we'll talk. - Lorenzo 

\--

Signor Monaldo,

Unfortunately it appears all bookstores in Milan are also out of stock of 'Bean There Done That', thanks perhaps to the increased popularity of all Mechanicsburg products in light of their rarity. However, I have a suggestion, if you're willing to risk some starting capital.

One bookshop employee recommended against getting a short run facsimile made, remembering a minor press that was destroyed when the Heterodyne decided to enforce copyright with a flamethrower. The new one is supposed to be less bloodthirsty but I doubt any press would take the risk. However, long publishing tradition protects the _seperate_ copyright of _translated works_. If we were to have the book translated into Lombard under a different title, we could do a short run in reasonable safety, satisfy our customers, and spread the book even to people who, not speaking Romanian, would never have read the original.

I know Bugatti's is a coffee company, not a book company, but helping develop the next generation of connoisseurs seems like a singularly worthwhile enterprise. What do you think?

\- I. Spina

\-- 

Spina, you don't have to get all nervous and break out the formal language, it's a fine idea. I see a big year-end bonus in your future. Go talk to Anna Maria Arabellini at 379 Via Pistone, lovely girl, cousin of mine, tell her it's a rush job. I'll get Jerzy to make up some blither for the signs. 

I don't see why everyone suddenly thinks all things Mechanicsburg are a miracle. It's not like the snail extract latte was a great loss to the world, and besides, they'll be back eventually. But we might as well give people what they want.

\- Monaldo

\--

_From the University of Milan Gazette:_

A curious demonstration of the importance of academic integrity occured yesterday when a fistfight broke out at Bugatti's Coffee Emporium. It seems that Bugatti's had recently commissioned a translation into the local vernacular of a Romanian book on the chemistry of coffee, and made it available for purchase at their shop. However, the translation had inserted various references to the superiority of Bugatti's coffee engines, approving remarks on its blends, &c, not present in the original work.

A certain Lady Mafalda de Verre, having previously read the Romanian original, discovered the deception and arrived without an appointment at the Emporium, demanding to speak the whoever authorized the translation. When the shop manager, one Alors Monaldo, was produced, she proceeded to deal him several stout blows with her parasol - a Cinque model incorporating the latest in electrical self-defense mechanisms, which at once lit the perpetrator's hair on fire.

Monaldo is expected to make a full recovery. Nonetheless, the Historiographic Club extends its thanks to Lady de Verre for the attempt. May all who falsify sources meet such a date!

Lady de Verre has kindly accepted our invitation to give a brief lecture on coffee production at the next Historiographic Club meeting, next Thursday at 7 PM, Ristorante Tympanum. Public welcome. Cash bar.

\--


End file.
